Maggie's Farm

Two Stooges, plus Sweden

Just to prove that some of us here have some humility, here's what we did on Saturday:

We took the Ford tractor, with the Dixie brushwacker hooked up, sharpened and ready, to go mow the "back forty" which we missed last year due to the tractor being worked on, and to cut some low branches that get in our way and annoy us by smacking us smartly in the face when we mow. This is a small, not really forty but maybe 25-acre curving meadow adjacent to the beaver marsh, that we only mow alternate years, for the wildlife. (Yes, there are no birds nesting in that field, but we  watch out for turtles, snakes, etc.)

On my foolish advice, and foolishly listening to mine, brother-in-law rests the chain saw on the side of the tractor seat balanced on top of a hill of chain that we use to drag heavy stuff, and I march behind carrying a plastic container of chain saw 50/1 gas-oil mix, and other miscellaneous tools including a shovel and a bunch of bare-root junipers I want to plant to mark the big rocks in the meadow, along with some Gatorade and Ballantine Ale, like the beast of burden that Bird Dog is.

The tractor hits a log hidden by the already 10" hay (thanks a lot, beavers, for dumping that log there), the chain saw jumps, incomprehensively, past the tire-guard and mischievously clips the nozzle off the tire. The water (yes, water-fiilled rear tires) spews out like a fire hydrant, and we have a flat tire on Memorial Day Saturday when no tractor tire places are open, plus the meadow is over a wooden bridge that I doubt any tire guy with his precious shiny Ford 350 pick-up would like to hazard.

Unprintable language spewed from Bird Dog as lavishly as the water did from the tire. So much for the day's planned work. But somehow the Stihl saw still worked after its victorious battle with the tire.